The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged Detainee Treatment Act

New Military Commissions Act Still Allows Coerced Testimony and Hearsay

By | 10.23.09 | 12:49 pm

A few more points worth noting about the new Military Commissions Act amendments passed by Congress yesterday: Just as the House bill circulating earlier did, the amendments passed would still allow some coerced testimony to be used in court if the military judge decides it’s reliable and More…

Memos Suggest Legal Cherry-Picking in Justifying Torture

By | 08.27.09 | 6:00 am

On the same day that the government produced the 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on interrogations, it also turned over seven more memos and letters from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The memos released on Monday were the Justice Department’s legal justifications for continuing to use those controversial More…

You Would Pay for Any CIA Interrogator’s Legal Defense

By | 04.20.09 | 1:41 pm

There’s no shortage of criticism directed at President Obama’s disinclination to prosecute CIA interrogators for torture, a position he’ll surely reiterate during his visit later this afternoon to CIA headquarters. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald objected to the Obama administration’s position, and he also rounded up similar objections from More…

McCain Could Be the Key to a Truth Commission

By | 02.20.09 | 12:33 pm

In reporting yesterday on the fallout from Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) proposal last week to create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the Bush administration’s alleged crimes in connection with its “war on terror,” I neglected to mention that in 2005  Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) had proposed a More…